Challenge:
The City of Clovis Police Department’s mission is to “provide superior protection and service.” That mission includes ensuring that Clovis City Jail operations remain uninterrupted and anyone booked into or working in the jail holding cell area is kept safe from harm. For that reason, the area had been equipped for years with a hard-wired panel that managed critical jail cell door operations, intercom communications, light switch functions and other security-related processes. When jail officials began experiencing trouble repairing failures in the archaic panel system, and there was no documentation to help troubleshoot the problems, they knew the control panel needed to be replaced before a major failure occurred and jeopardized jail operations.
As a result, the City of Clovis Police Department engaged Automation Group to design and deliver a solution that would maximize reliability and minimize troubleshooting efforts. City officials needed a partner that could fully ideate the project scope and recommend a unique configuration. They chose Automation Group for the company’s depth of technical expertise and reputation for developing the most elegant, cost-effective solutions for its customers, on time and within budget.
When jail officials began experiencing trouble repairing failures in the archaic panel system, and there was no documentation to help troubleshoot the problems, they knew the control panel needed to be replaced before a major failure occurred and jeopardized jail operations.
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Solution:
Automation Group engineers and project managers examined the existing control panel and determined the original scope of “cleaning up the mess” would not provide the integrity the police department needed. They discovered, through reverse engineering, the old system had roots way deeper than anyone anticipated and extended to rooms and places that had not been touched in many years.
Reliability was paramount to this project as downtime is not an option during daily jail operations. The team determined that a Programmable Logic Controller (PLC), along with a Human-Machine Interface (HMI), was the best solution to ensure delivery of a well-organized system capable of executing reliably across all operations.
Result:
Automation Group engineers ultimately tracked down and extracted the old signals and integrated new reliable controls to replicate the functions the officers were familiar with. Troubleshooting issues with the existing chaotic bundle of 300+ wires would be reduced to just two small cables with a new state-of-the-art touchscreen installed with Ignition Software. The final design would be considered fairly unique for a commercial environment, but for security reasons, it was the most reliable and cost-effective solution for the project.
With the design complete, Automation Group conducted the changeover successfully in just five days with minimal interruption to daily operations. They also delivered an easy-to-understand operator’s manual, along with training, documentation, and schematics to assist the police for years to come.
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Automation Group was great to work with. They offered solutions to problems we expected, but also for those we didn’t anticipate. It is not common in our world to deal with automation control and if this type of problem ever comes up again, I’ll definitely be reaching out to Automation Group.”
Ben Hutchison, City of Clovis Facilities Maintenance Supervisor
